


Gone

by PurpleSaline



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:21:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleSaline/pseuds/PurpleSaline
Summary: This is a "What If?" Fic. It started with me wondering how an Alex/Lena situation would happen in my headcanon of Sanvers and Supercorp and that answer will eventually reveal itself but I haven't written that far yet.So currently this is "What if Kara saved Alex and the CADMUS ship full of aliens but was lost in the process?"There is no smut yet, but there will be.At the risk of spoiling the ending I think it's important to note that Supergirl will be found/come back and I WANT a happy ending but I don't know if the story will cooperate with that or not.This is my first fanfic. It's not just my first one on AO3, and not just my first Supergirl fanfic but it's my first fanfic period. I hope I've done the characters justice





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had originally wanted to finish the entire piece before posting it but that started to feel like I was writing in a vacuum since no one I know watches Supergirl so I didn't have anyone to encourage me and it was getting harder to write. So I decided to post the first two installments and hope for some feedback.

Supergirl had been gone for months. Kara had been gone for months. And it was all Alex's fault. That fucking ship. Fucking CADMUS. Those fucking aliens who just had to get captured and needed to be saved. Her father...

She'd wanted him back but not like this, not at the expense of her sister. It was her fault for wanting. It was her fault for ever daring to think she could have it all, her family, Maggie, happiness. She should have just accepted that she wasn't allowed to be happy and at least Kara would still be here. Her father wouldn't be but at least her family would all be alive even if they weren't together. At least she would have had that.

But Kara was dead, lost in space after stopping that fucking ship and saving Alex's worthless life.

Supergirl had tried to slow the ship, to stop it, but her strength wasn't enough and the ship was about to reach orbit where Supergirl wouldn't be able to keep pushing. Alex screamed at her to stop, to just let her go and they'd find another way. She had begged, first Supergirl and then when she wouldn't listen, Kara. Alex could see tears in her sisters eyes when Kara whispered goodbye. She couldn't hear her through the glass but she saw her lips form the words and all Alex could do was to beg, to plead, tears running down her own face as she watched her sister fly off, as far from the ship as she could while there was still gravity to help with what she needed to do next.

A streak of blue and red sailed through the thinning atmosphere and collided with the ship. Alex was thrown backward with the impact and she could hear the distant sound of screams as the aliens that had been captured were tossed about like rag dolls. Lights flickered and electricity arced from damaged panels and the last thing Alex had seen before losing consciousness was Supergirl, Kara Danvers, her sister, being flung out into space at the same speed with which she'd hit the ship. _Newton's third law_ , her brain uselessly offered, and then everything was black.

She woke up in the DEO to see a tired and withdrawn Maggie sitting listlessly next to her, staring off into the distance with her fingers wrapped loosely around Alex's hand. Maggie looked like she'd given up hope, given up everything. Alex groaned and it sounded loud in her head but Maggie didn't even twitch so she must not have made much noise at all. Her fingers twitched in the hand that held them and her eyes squinted shut against the harsh light of the med bay. Alex heard the whisper of Maggie's hair brushing against her jacket as her head turned and even that small sound was enough to cause Alex to wince in pain.

_Head injury_. Her brain again, helpful as ever. _Concussion. Possible TBI_.

"What happened?" She spoke as quietly as she could manage, barely a whisper but still it thundered in her head and she whimpered helplessly at the pain of it.

"Alex?" Maggie's voice cracked as if it hadn't been used in days. There was disbelief in that single word. Fear. Hope. Alex could see the same things in the melting brown eyes, red rimmed and puffy, that stared down at her. "Alex! You're awake!" Incredulous now, and loud.

"Ow." Alex whimpered again and screwed her eyes shut against the searing pain. It was like an icepick, that noise, those words, her voice. An icepick through her eyes and into her brain.

"Oh. Shit. Sorry Danvers." This came as the softest of whispers, Maggie's voice so long silent struggling to get the words out and failing in spots so it was like listening to a bad signal on the radio. The red that Alex could see through her tightly shut eyelids suddenly vanished as the lights in the room were dimmed. The relief was so sudden and so exquisite that Alex felt a tear roll down the side of her face. Maggie's soft footfalls came nearer and there was a creak of the chair next to the bed as she sat again.

"I was afraid I'd lost you." Maggie was still whispering and with the lights out the sound didn't seem to hurt Alex as much as it had before. Alex opened her eyes just as Maggie took her hand again, grasping it tightly between both of her own in a death grip.

"Not lost." Alex murmured. She cast her eyes around the room as best she could without moving her head, searching. She felt lost though, confused, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something very important.

"What happened?" Alex tried the question again and that sense of something missing only intensified when she saw the look of desperation and horror in Maggie's eyes. There was something else there too, Alex tried to bring the word to mind, fumbled, tried again and grasped onto the edge of it as it sailed by. Pity. That's what it was. There was pity in Maggie's eyes.

Alex sat up in sudden alarm and immediately regretted it, her stomach rebelling. She twisted and retched over the side of the hospital bed, her sides heaving as her stomach struggled to expel something, anything, but all she managed to bring up were thin strands of bile. When was the last time she ate?

There was a sudden stabbing pain in her chest with the last of her efforts and she cried out, falling back onto the bed with her arms clutched protectively around herself, a thin IV line fluttered with the movement of her left hand. _Broken rib_. Her brain supplied, helpful once again, if too late to do much good. _Maybe more than one, better stay still_.

"Wonderful." Alex muttered past clenched teeth. She heard the door slide open, felt a rush of cool air brush against her face and she looked over to see Maggie walking in with J'onn on her heels. She must have left when Alex had been puking.

"Alex. It's good to see you awake." Alex winced inwardly at his use of her first name, he never did that unless there was something wrong. She stared at him hard, wishing she could read his mind as easily as he could read theirs.

"What aren't you telling me J'onn? Maggie?" She turned her scowl to her girlfriend and Maggie shifted uncomfortably, refusing to meet her eyes.

"What. Happened. Why am I in the med bay?" J'onn gave her a look of such sympathy, his eyes so haunted. Fuck the ribs. Alex sat upright again though more slowly and carefully than before. She returned J'onn's sympathy with suspicion, her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Where is Kara?" There was ice in Alex's voice, hardened steel. Maggie glanced up and reached her hand out toward Alex but Alex leaned back from her, the starched linen crackling as she moved. "No." Denial. "Where is Kara? Where is my sister?" Alex was shaking her head, looking between the two people standing in front of her.

"Alex." J'onn began quietly, soothingly in his deep voice. Alex kept shaking her head despite the pain it was causing, kept whispering under her breath, no. No. **No**. Refusing to hear what he was trying to tell her.

"Sweetie," Maggie tried this time and her hand reached out again but stopped short, hanging in the air between them as if it had encountered some invisible barrier.

"NO!" Her first word above a whisper was a scream and it tore painfully from her throat. Maggie flinched as if struck but stood her ground. "WHERE is Kara!" Alex started to stand but before she could there were two pairs of hands holding her down, two voices whispering softly to her, trying to reassure her, and all Alex could see was the image burned into her retinas of Supergirl, Kara Danvers, her sister, being flung backward into the deep, dark vacuum of space as the ship Alex was in shuddered violently before beginning its fall back to earth.

***

She didn't wake up again for days, not really, not entirely. There were flashes of the med bay, of the medical staff bustling around. Of Maggie sitting vigil looking more drawn and more tired each time. Sometimes J'onn was there and sometimes Winn was. James, Lucy, Vasquez. They all had turns. But Maggie, Maggie never left her side. She looked like a ghost and in rare moments when Alex was close to consciousness, and when she didn't remember that her sister was gone, Alex wanted to reach out to her and comfort her. But either the blackness would claim her again or she'd remember what had happened and willingly retreat into her dreams to escape the torture of reality.

When she finally woke again the pain was gone. She knew this because she could hear the steady beep, beep, beep, of the heart monitor and there was no accompanying feeling of her skull being split down the centre and pried open. It was dark, and not just in the med bay. All the lights in the DEO were out, except the emergency lights, and it was quiet. She could hear no distant buzz of voices as agents chatted in the locker room. There were no authoritative commands coming from the briefing room. No sounds of sparring from the gym, and through the glass walls that looked out into the control room she could see not a single person sitting at stations. If it wasn't for the soft, even breathing of Maggie sleeping quietly in the chair beside her, Alex would have thought she was the only living soul in the entire base.

She could feel the tears well up in the corner of her eyes and then fall unheeded, sliding down her cheeks. She was alive. She was alive but Kara was gone. Alex felt a sudden rush of all-consuming anger and she would have screamed if the feelings hadn't paralyzed her vocal chords with their intensity. The tears fell faster and her hands shook as she began to sob curling in on herself, turning her back to Maggie and shifting onto her side so she could wrap her arms around her knees and grieve in the shelter of the fetal position.

The sound of a chair leg scraping against the floor let her know that Maggie was awake and she slowly pulled her ragged emotions back into herself, slowly stilled her sobs, but no amount of effort could stop the tears. Alex breathed in deeply and shakily as she tried to bottle the grief and tuck it away but there was too much to fit and it seeped out through the edges of the seal.

"I'm so sorry Alex." Maggie's hand rested lightly against her back and her words were soft and full of pain. An irrational anger rose up from Alex's gut and stuck in her throat, choking her. What right did Maggie have to be in pain? Alex was the one who had lost a sister, lost her best friend. Alex was the one who had failed the girl her mother had charged her with protecting, that Alex had sworn to protect with her very life. Maggie had no right to be hurt by that, to make Alex want to cradle her body against her own and comfort her in her pain when Alex was the one that needed that comfort the most.

"Go home Maggie." Alex spoke through gritted teeth, the words spit from her mouth. She refused to turn around, to face the woman that she loved. _She loved. She was in love. In love with Maggie, but she couldn't tell her before and now she never would_.

"Danvers...? I..." Maggie hadn't expected that, it was clear by the surprise in her voice as she stammered. Alex tensed, the muscles in her back going rigid beneath the hand that still rested there.

"Go home. I don't want you here. Just....." The words that had begun so strong and so forceful and so sure trailed off and the last were spoken in a choked whisper. "..leave. I don't want you here." The falling tears began to roll down her face again, faster, but Alex managed to hold in the wracking sobs until finally, at last, Maggie withdrew her hand and her footsteps faded away into silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is physically healed but her emotional readiness is called into question.

Alex had been unconscious for three days the first time around. J’onn had told her later, after she’d recovered fully. Physically at least. The ship had fallen back to Earth and crashed in one of the warehouse districts on the edge of National City. Given the time of night it was sparsely populated at least and there was enough notice to vacate anyone who had been there. There were no casualties but the property damage was immense and it would take years to rebuild. Alex half listened to J’onn debriefing her while a medic checked her vitals one last time before he announced her fully recovered from her ordeal. She saw J’onn nod at the medic in dismissal from the corner of her eye, _Mendez_ , her brain supplied. Mendez returned the nod and gathered his kit before making a quick departure.

“Alex?” J’onn had been trying to get her attention and his voice only now penetrated the fog blanketing her mind. She shook her head briefly as if to clear it and turned to him, waiting. Her features were carefully neutral, she was clinging to the numbness like a life raft. “It’s been a month now Alex. We haven’t been able to find any trace of Supergirl.” He was being careful with his words, with the tone of his voice. He spoke softly as if that would make what he was saying any less painful, any easier to hear.

A month already. Three days unconscious before she woke up the first time and then it was another week in the med bay, never really coming to the surface of wakefulness. The last week and a half she was recovering in her apartment, coming in to the DEO for regular checks but otherwise hermitting. She had let no one visit, though her friends kept trying. James and Winn knocked every day and, when she refused to answer the door, they quietly left but always there was food when she’d open the door later. Sometimes pizza, sometimes Chinese or Thai or fresh groceries, microwaveable meals. Wynn always left a pint of ice cream but neither of them ever left potstickers, and never alcohol. That was okay, she could get her own alcohol.

J’onn stopped calling after the first two days of getting no answer but near the end of that first week he did stop by. She knew it was him because he tried to talk to her through the door, tried to convince her to open it, to at least let him know she was okay. She didn’t. She went to the DEO for her follow ups, he knew she was alive. Vasquez sent her a text every couple days or so just to say that she was thinking of her and Alex didn’t mind those so much because Vasquez never expected a response. Lucy, on the other hand, called every single day. Not texted, actually called. Who the hell even did that these days anyway? And every single day she left a message; sometimes plaintive, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes pleading, and sometimes it was demanding, ordering, and angry. Lucy tried consoling and tried tough love, anything to get Alex to come out of her shell, anything to get Alex to actually feel something again. But every call and every voicemail was ignored, just like every other method of contact her friends attempted. At one point Alex got so tired of all of the alerts and notifications she put her phone in the freezer and just let the battery die.

And then there was Maggie. Alex had refused to see her too. After the third day that Alex had been home and had ignored Maggie’s texts and calls she just let herself into the apartment with the key that Alex had given her before the crash. They’d fought, screaming at each other. Maggie had begged Alex to let her help, to let her be there for her. Maggie had called her stubborn and frustrating with tears in her eyes, had accused her of shutting down and seeking solace in alcohol instead of her friends like she should be, of trying to run away from the truth instead of deal with it. Alex yelled back that she didn’t need anyone’s help, that she was fine on her own and that she didn’t have time to ‘deal with her grief’ because she was too busy actually looking for her sister instead of giving up like everyone else. Maggie denied that anyone was giving up but that it was becoming less and less likely that Kara would ever be found and Alex turned cold and hard and told Maggie to leave. There was no room in her life for quitters and that she refused to be in a relationship with someone who wasn’t going to support her.

It had been a bad fight. Maggie, her tears now falling freely, had tried to explain that she was supportive of Alex, of her search for Kara, and that she was just trying to help her prepare for the worst. Alex would hear none of it and kept cutting her off, yelling at her to leave, to get out and not bother coming back. When Maggie finally did leave Alex had called a locksmith and the next day when Maggie came to check on Alex her key no longer worked.

“Agent Danvers.” Once again she’d missed J’onn trying to get her attention only this time, with Alex trapped in the memories of the previous weeks and not responding, he’d resorted to speaking her name in a sharp, commanding voice. Instinct kicked in and brought the world back into focus for her, her mind and body had been trained to respond to that tone by that voice before she was even conscious of it.

“Sorry Director.” He’d been talking about what they’d done to try to locate Supergirl, to try to locate Kara. Her sister. They were ready to give up, everyone wanted to give up. J’onn sighed deeply, noticing Alex’s mind starting to wander once again.

“Go home, Agent Danvers. Get some rest.” Alex’s head snapped up at the words and her eyes turned hard, a flash of green sparking in the hazel. In less than a second she had schooled her features, bringing the anger back under a tight rein and, outwardly at least, she was once again the professional agent.

“I’m fine sir. I just need to work.” She needed anything that could help her keep her mind off of what had happened, off of the fact that her sister was out there, somewhere, floating in space. A surge of panic rose up in her at that thought, choking her, and she quickly throttled it and shoved it back into the dark. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath, the muscles of her jaw clenching and flexing.

“That’s an order Agent.” J’onn’s voice was stern but when Alex opened her eyes she could see the deep pain in his.

“Sir, I’ve been cleared. I’m good to go.” Normally she wouldn’t have argued with him but she couldn’t stand the thought of going back to her apartment, alone, with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. She was tired of thinking, of remembering. She was tired of feeling and all she wanted was to get back on the job, to do something that got her heart racing and her adrenaline pumping. Something where she could just shut off her brain and run on instinct and muscle memory. She needed to beat the shit out of someone.

“Physically, yes.” J’onn agreed, nodding slowly. He crossed his arms over his chest and drew himself up to his full height. “But you haven’t been cleared by psych, Agent Danvers, and until that happens you aren’t stepping foot outside the DEO as an agent.” Alex bristled at the word psych and she was just drawing breath to argue against the bureaucratic red tape when J’onn cut her off. “Don’t make me suspend you Agent Danvers.” She shut her mouth, teeth clicking and nodded tightly.

“Just go home Alex.” Now his deep voice was tired and his face seemed to fall, showing the weight of the last month, the toll it had taken on him. Alex felt bad, for just a moment, about making this harder on him. “I’ll call you in when psych is ready for your assessment.” And the moment was gone, sympathy fled and burning anger replaced it. She said nothing else as she stormed from the DEO, not even to Vasquez when she tried to say hello, and she nearly bowled right over Winn without stopping to apologize for it.

***

Two days later she was called in for her psych assessment and the feeling of relief at finally being able to do something other than just sitting in her apartment in the dark was nearly overwhelming. She dressed ready for duty with her uniform freshly laundered and even pressed. Every speck of dirt had been wiped from her thigh holster and her gun, her favourite alien gun, was freshly oiled, cleaned, and charged. She wanted there to be no doubts of her readiness. All of her feelings, all her pain and loss was locked away carefully in the darkest corner of her mind. Alex Danvers was every inch the soldier, the Agent, as she walked into the DEO and strode purposefully to the psych offices.

An hour later there was the sound of smashing glass and rage. A paperweight came sailing out of the psychiatrist office, barely slowed by the privacy curtain or the glass of the door itself, and quickly followed by Alex Danvers herself. No longer calm and purposeful or distant. Feelings no longer safely tucked away, she burned brightly with anger, every line of her body taut and vibrating with the effort of not lashing out. Peggy, the psych admin clerk, had ducked down behind her desk to avoid the shards of glass that scattered across the room and after a quick look when Alex had stalked from the room decided that it was likely safest to stay where she was until the agent had left the floor.

***

“Director Henshaw!” Her voice rang loud and sharp even in the busy op center. Work seemed to pause momentarily and faces looked up from their stations and conversations as Alex stormed into the room but it only took one look at her flint hard eyes and clenched jaw for them to realize this was a conversation none of them wanted any part of. J’onn looked up from the satellite reports displayed on the central pedestal and took a deep breath in preparation of the looming conflict.

“Agent Danvers.” He kept his voice even and calm but the muscles along his jaw twitched with the effort of it. Alex moved like a striking panther, closing the distance between them in an instant, and she waved a sheet of paper in J’onn’s face.

“What the hell J’onn? This is bullshit!” Her anger had the best of her now and any sense of decorum and professionalism was forgotten. She stood in front of him, the page still held in front of his face, and she trembled with the sheer enormity of her fury. J’onn drew himself up to his full and rather impressive height. His eyes became sharp and he snatched the paper from her hand and slammed it down onto the table, not even looking at it.

“Agent Danvers!” His voice snapped, hard with command. Alex’s body responded immediately and stilled but her mind refused to obey and she was already opening her mouth to speak again but he cut her short with a stern look. Her jaw snapped shut audibly and though she remained still and silent her body fairly crackled with the energy of barely suppressed violence. J’onn didn’t look down at the sheet he held flat on the table but Alex could see the knowledge of what it held in his eyes and the modicum of control she’d had left snapped. The white hot fury fuelling her turned cold in that moment and when she spoke that chill coated every quiet word.

“You knew?” She accused. He didn’t speak, just watched her quietly with his arms now crossed over his chest making him appear to be even larger than he was. “You knew.” It wasn’t a question this time. “And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t warn me?” His silence continued but she saw a spark of pity in his eyes, sorry and sympathy. A flicker of heat sparked in the cold of her rage, she narrowed her eyes but he didn’t flinch, he didn’t fear her the way everyone else did. “You let me think I was going to be cleared. You let me think I was going to be able to start working again. You let me hope-” She choked on the last word, her voice breaking and tears coming to her eyes. Alex growled, irritated with her weakness, her vulnerability and blinked back the tears, refusing to let them fall.

“Alex,” J’onn’s voice was as soft as his eyes now were and that kindness was like a knife to her heart. She flinched the way she had expected him to and dropped her eyes from his, unable to acknowledge the sympathy there, the love there. “You aren’t ready yet. You lost your sister. You don’t just get over that.” Her anger, which had begun to fade away under the tenderness flared up like a grease fire and her head rose to meet his gaze again.

“Kara is not lost!” She yelled it at him defiantly and her hands curled into fists at her side. This time J’onn did flinch back from her as if she’d struck him and she could read his feelings as clearly as if she had the ability to read his mind.

“Alex, there’s been no sign of her. We’ve looked, we’ve been looking for a month now. There hasn’t been a single sighting of her anywhere.” He was broken. He loved Kara as a daughter and her loss pained him more than he would ever admit to. “She’s gone Alex. You need to accept that.” She pitied him. In the moment before her anger claimed her again she felt a deep and understanding for the man who had, like her, promised to protect Kara but had failed at his duty. It didn’t take long for her anger to turn that pity to disgust though.

“No.” That single word was the last she spoke, punctuated by the sound of her badge hitting the floor at his feet and then she just walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all I have so far! I'll add more as I write it and hopefully it's enjoyable!


End file.
